Start Close In
Start with your own question
Start Close In
Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way to begin the conversation. Start with your own question, give up on other people's questions, don't let them smother something simple. To hear another's voice, follow your own voice, wait until that voice becomes an intimate private ear that can really listen to another. Start right now take a small step you can call your own don't follow someone else's heroics, be humble and focused, start close in, don't mistake that other for your own. Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. -from David Whyte: Essentials
The next Three Sundays Series, The Invitational Identity begins Sunday, January 4th at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. Learn more or register here:
This is perfection for this new year start.
Thank you.
One of my favorites as well. I recall a time not too long ago when I faced several major changes in career and relationship, but in bringing this poem to mind realized I was avoiding an even larger step close in regarding back surgery that I had been reluctant to take for years, but was becoming ever more urgent the more I refused to acknowledge it. This is excellent wisdom, David, and (as Suzanne notes) particularly so for the new year.